IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/19496.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Ricardian or Spender Consumers? Evidence from a Taxpayer Survey Questionnaire

Author

Listed:
  • Échevin, Damien

Abstract

This paper uses a unique survey questionnaire to assess the impact of the 2002 French tax cut on consumption. I find that the proportion of "spender" consumers as opposed to "Ricardian" consumers is relatively high, with 52.7 per cent of the households declaring that they consume their tax cuts. I also find evidence that the average marginal propensity to consume tax cuts (76.5%) is significantly greater than the average marginal propensity to consume temporary rises in earnings (42.4%). This result is consistent with the PIH. Furthermore, the smaller the tax cut, the greater this gap; and the higher the family earnings, the higher the marginal propensity to consume tax cuts, which invalidates the effect of liquidity constraints on consumption in that context.

Suggested Citation

  • Échevin, Damien, 2009. "Ricardian or Spender Consumers? Evidence from a Taxpayer Survey Questionnaire," MPRA Paper 19496, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:19496
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/19496/1/MPRA_paper_19496.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/19581/1/MPRA_paper_19581.pdf
    File Function: revised version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Barro, Robert J, 1974. "Are Government Bonds Net Wealth?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(6), pages 1095-1117, Nov.-Dec..
    2. Shapiro, Matthew D & Slemrod, Joel, 1995. "Consumer Response to the Timing of Income: Evidence from a Change in Tax Withholding," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(1), pages 274-283, March.
    3. N. Gregory Mankiw, 2000. "The Savers-Spenders Theory of Fiscal Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 120-125, May.
    4. Matthew D. Shapiro & Joel Slemrod, 2003. "Consumer Response to Tax Rebates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 381-396, March.
    5. Matthew D. Shapiro & Joel Slemrod, 2003. "Did the 2001 Tax Rebate Stimulate Spending? Evidence from Taxpayer Surveys," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 17, pages 83-110, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Souleles, Nicholas S., 2002. "Consumer response to the Reagan tax cuts," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 99-120, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Meissner, Thomas & Rostam-Afschar, Davud, 2017. "Learning Ricardian Equivalence," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 273-288.
    2. Bernd Hayo & Matthias Uhl, 2017. "Taxation and consumption: evidence from a representative survey of the German population," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(53), pages 5477-5490, November.
    3. Jonathan Heathcote, 2005. "Fiscal Policy with Heterogeneous Agents and Incomplete Markets," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(1), pages 161-188.
    4. Chambers, Valrie & Spencer, Marilyn, 2008. "Does changing the timing of a yearly individual tax refund change the amount spent vs. saved?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 856-862, December.
    5. Alan S. Blinder, 2004. "The Case Against the Case Against Discretionary Fiscal Policy," Working Papers 102, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    6. Alan S. Blinder, 2004. "The Case Against the Case Against Discretionary Fiscal Policy," Working Papers 102, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    7. Laurence S. Seidman & Kenneth A. Lewis, 2003. "Is a Tax Rebate an Effective Tool for Combating a Recession?: A Reply to Shapiro and Slemrod," Working Papers 03-15, University of Delaware, Department of Economics.
    8. Sumit Agarwal & Leslie McGranahan, 2012. "Spending responses to state sales tax holidays," Working Paper Series WP-2012-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    9. repec:pri:cepsud:100blinder is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Claudia R. Sahm & Matthew D. Shapiro & Joel Slemrod, 2012. "Check in the Mail or More in the Paycheck: Does the Effectiveness of Fiscal Stimulus Depend on How It Is Delivered?," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 216-250, August.
    11. Dimitris Christelis & Dimitris Georgarakos & Tullio Jappelli & Luigi Pistaferri & Maarten van Rooij, 2019. "Asymmetric Consumption Effects of Transitory Income Shocks," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(622), pages 2322-2341.
    12. Campbell, J.R. & Hercowitz, Zvi, 2018. "Liquidity Constraints of the Middle Class (revision of CentER DP 2015-009)," Discussion Paper 2018-039, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    13. Julia Lynn Coronado & Joseph P. Lupton & Louise Sheiner, 2005. "The household spending response to the 2003 tax cut: evidence from survey data," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2005-32, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    14. Hsieh, Chang-Tai & Shimizutani, Satoshi & Hori, Masahiro, 2010. "Did Japan's shopping coupon program increase spending?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(7-8), pages 523-529, August.
    15. Shimizutani, Satoshi, 2006. "Consumer response to the 1998 tax cut: Is a temporary tax cut effective?," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 269-287, June.
    16. Matthew D. Shapiro & Joel Slemrod, 2003. "Did the 2001 Tax Rebate Stimulate Spending? Evidence from Taxpayer Surveys," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 17, pages 83-110, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. repec:pri:wwseco:dp231 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Tullio Jappelli & Luigi Pistaferri, 2014. "Fiscal Policy and MPC Heterogeneity," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(4), pages 107-136, October.
    19. Norbert Michel & Nazneen Ahmad, 2012. "Consumer response to child tax credit," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 43(3), pages 1199-1214, December.
    20. Nicholas S. Souleles & Jonathan A. Parker & David S. Johnson, 2006. "Household Expenditure and the Income Tax Rebates of 2001," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1589-1610, December.
    21. Grant Graziani & Wilbert van der Klaauw & Basit Zafar, 2016. "Workers' Spending Response to the 2011 Payroll Tax Cuts," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 8(4), pages 124-159, November.
    22. Thomas Bishop & Cheolbeom Park, 2010. "Borrowing Constraints, the Marginal Propensity to Consume, and the Effectiveness of Fiscal Policy," Discussion Paper Series 1008, Institute of Economic Research, Korea University.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    income tax cut; consumption; survey questionnaire; PIH; liquidity constraints.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household
    • H24 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Personal Income and Other Nonbusiness Taxes and Subsidies
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:19496. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.